01732 759725 without compromising its traditional function of providing the support partners need at each stage of the sales cycle. “Today, partners don’t just buy tech; they’re delivering outcomes to their customers, so they need more support. A big focus of ours is to look at that broad channel enablement. How can we reach the greatest number of partners possible, while still delivering significant value into that base? We do that by having a cloud platform for efficiencies and cost optimisation and sales tools etc.. But equally, alongside those platforms, it’s the people. Products change, but what doesn’t change is channel being a people-centric business; it’s about those connections and networks,” he said. “We have a broad range of partners and they all require assistance at some point. We step in to fill whatever gaps they think they may have. Whether it’s cloud, whether it’s on-prem, whether it’s hardware, whether it’s software, it’s about how do we add value to that partner base. How do we stay relevant. In all my time in distribution, the one constant is the need for us to be visible to our partners. We have to engage, we have to be active, we have to drive value and we have to bring ideas to them. The more we can help them and remove barriers to sale, because they’re trying to sell outcomes rather than just point products, the more sticky we become as a supplier partner and the more they come back to us.” For Taylor, the key to partner enablement is what he calls the circle of value, which is about people, products, platforms, services. “Arrowsphere is one element of how we help them. Pre-sales is a big focus for us. Services enablement is another big element – we have a huge field of customer-facing, vendor-focused sales teams that go out and help enable, certify and train different teams within our partner base. Demand generation is something we’re always trying to deliver, and that’s something we do really well in certain pockets of the business. The channel, in all the time I’ve been doing it, is about looking where we can either plug a gap, find an opportunity or deliver something that offers value to our partners, that allows them to recognise an opportunity with their customers, deliver an enhanced solution to their end user or solve a problem.” Arrowsphere is a complete sales cycle in itself; it’s not just for the end of that cycle, for procurement.” One of Arrowsphere’s tools, which was also highlighted by Microsoft, is the Arrowsphere AI Assistant. “It’s something we invested in probably over a year ago, maybe two years ago. It’s all about providing insight. It allows our partners to query, question and challenge their install base, to optimise and look for migration opportunities and upsell opportunities. You can say ‘Hey, I’m selling to X, tell me about their install base’ and it will come back immediately with a view of the licences, where there’s opportunity for upsell or where you could optimise the estate and make cost savings. AI Assistant is of huge value to partners.” In that respect, platforms like Arrowsphere are a continuation, or maybe an evolution, of what distributors have always sought to do, albeit with more relevance to today’s more consultative customer relationships. “Technology will continue to evolve and improve and the question for Arrow is how do we adapt and be relevant whilst the technology landscape is changing and accelerating at pace? How do we continue to be relevant when there are marketplaces and other routes to market? Arrowsphere is our option there. I’d say it’s more complete, but equally it’s about being relevant.” People power Importantly, Taylor says that Arrow is developing these new tools and capabilities At the end of November, Technology Reseller joined Arrow ECS at its Agents of Change partner event in London. There, we caught up with Ben Taylor, UK Sales Director of Arrow ECS, who was still buzzing from the previous night’s announcement that Arrow had been named the 2025 Microsoft Distributor Partner of the Year. Arrow won particular praise for its ArrowSphere cloud delivery and management platform, which Taylor describes as a ‘a big part of our business’, and especially its AI features like ArrowSphere Assistant. “Arrowsphere continues to bring us a lot of opportunity in that public cloud space and monthly recurring revenue (MMR) model, where once you land, you can expand quite easily,” he said. “It’s growing really well; it’s winning hearts and minds in the market and in the customer base; and we have more vendors being launched on it on a monthly basis. At the moment, there are 50 vendors and that will just continue to go up,” he said. The entire cycle What Arrowsphere is not, Taylor adds, is just another cloud marketplace like those offered by the hyperscalers. “Arrowsphere is different because it’s more about the whole sales cycle – ideation, through to creation through to completion. It’s not just a procurement function. The various tools and dashboards it has allow you to query the data, gain insights and prompt opportunity. How Arrow is evolving to meet changing customer requirements True to its aim Platforms 08
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